In some of the poorest parts of India, brothers share a wife[1]. One brother stays home with the woman, working in agriculture for a year or so, while the other moves to a larger city thousands of miles away to work as a manual laborer where pay is better. Then the brothers switch places.
After reading your post, I realized this arrangement also ensures that if the woman becomes pregnant, they know fairly reliably who the father is. The physical distance also ensures that there is no sexual jealousy.
I learned this from someone who had moved to the city from such an arrangement. He said this practice essentially ensures that the woman (who is often married at the young age of 14 or older) does not have affairs. It is seen as preferable to be intimate with a husband's sibling than with someone outside the family. Additionally, others in the village know the woman is "protected," so they are less likely to pursue her. Secondly, children are taken care off even if the father knows they are not his, because after all they are still his own blood (through brother). Grandparents too have no reason to discriminate against grandkids.
[1] This is not a common practice because my source for this is anecdotal information but confirmed by occasional news article throwing light on these sort of things.
My unerstanding from coursework in "South Asia" many decades ago, was that it was relatively common practice in Nepal and Bhutan (not sure about Tibet) for tow or more brothers to marry two or more not-very-closely-related-to-the-brothers sisters in a group marriage. Yhis was at least partly due to having only limited areas of agrable land plus not wanting to overly split the land among inheriting brothers.
And of course the infant survival rate was pretty low.
I can't quickly find a source for this, it was just very memorable at the time, so this article resurfaced the memory. The practice seems to make sense in such circumstances.
1) Do you think that the decline in monogamy and rise of polygamy is to do with changes in technology, or to government interference in marriage law? Since the 1970s, divorce courts have ruled consistently against men even when a woman violates her marital vows, such as by committing adultery. Adultery is essentially a form of fraud and theft -- a reneging on a contract where the one owes chastity to the other. Typically, there was some punishment, even perhaps physical punishment, for women who committed adultery. The result is that government has essentially made marriage, in the traditional sense, illegal. It is illegal for a woman to take a vow of chastity in the USA which is legally enforceable. I am not advocating or denying this system of traditional marriage. Here is a substack article I wrote about it: https://romanviolin.substack.com/p/marriage-is-illegal?https://substack.com/home/post/p-143174733?r=1dzuvw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
2) The other major factor you are missing is the fact that reproduction, biologically, is much more difficult for women than for men. A man who wants to have hundreds of children, theoretically, can. A woman simply cannot have very many children, and by the time the number gets up to three, four, five, and more the household work does become a full time job. The check to female reproduction is biological. The check to male reproduction is social. The hard part is finding a wife, but after consummation the woman does most of the work (biologically)! In a sense, men have many more children to "give" than women do. If every man was allowed to repopulate at his preferred rate, he would produce an entire village full of children.
Thus, the result of normalizing and legalizing polygamy is not likely to be a greater increase in overall sexual satisfaction. The result is likely to be that a small number of men marry all the women, and that most men are pushed out of the sexual marketplace entirely. This has already happened to a considerable degree.
3) In a polygamous society there is no "we" -- the male and female unit -- which produces children and "owns" the family. Under monogamy, both the man and the woman did all the work -- biological, economical, social and otherwise. Under polygamy, is the "we" all the parental members of the family? Let us say there is a polygamous relationship with two men and three women. Will each man be the 1/2 property owner of all the children produced by his wives (regardless of paternity), or will he fully own only his children and have no fatherhood role toward the rest? Will his income than be docked according to which children are his? Then multiple children who are siblings will have different socioeconomic statuses despite living in the same house depending on who their father is. Additionally, is it to be expected that men and women care for all children produced by the family and not prefer their own children? I think that the preference for one's own children is pretty inborn into us as well, especially into women.
At a certain point, polygamously, doesn't the "we" just become all of society? Why can't a million people just sign a contract saying we all are married polygamously now, and these children are all our children, owned jointly? Then, we will designate some institution to take some of everyone's income and this institution will be responsible for raising all the children. Indeed, we are halfway there already -- to full sexual socialism.
I hope these comments provide food for thought. Always an interesting read, Mr. Friedman.
that last sentence is classic David Friedman: "if there are rational reasons not to feel jealousy anymore, it is no longer necessary", ah but humans are not the kind of thing that can just update like that, robotically (nor do I think there's anything wrong with that: a definite human-ness, even when feeble, is better in my view than a world that tries so hard to be optimal it's now questionable how human it is)
Well, there's the additional factor that I have/had six sisters-in-law, and I wouldn't want to be married to any of them. At least 4 of them fit their husbands very well, just not me. ;-)
I once dated a woman off tinder who was dating multiple other men off tinder for a couple months. It generally seemed like a good deal for the woman, there are lots of nice men on tinder who'd be happy to get any date at all, even with a polyandrous woman. And the woman has a benefit of being able to have lots of flexibility on date nights at times most convenient to her and pleasant variety in partners.
I understand that most women seem to be very reluctant to engage in polyandry, at least partially due to culture, maybe for genetic reasons too. But I think quite a few would be much better off to overcome that reluctance and take advantage of the abundance of men on dating apps today.
You are discussing dating, not marriage. The pattern you are describing is promiscuity, or something close, depending on how picky the woman is, not polyandry.
In your usage, does "date" mean "sleep with"? Some people now seem to use it that way. In my lexicon dating is usually, although not always, part of courtship, ideally leading to marriage, may or may not include intercourse
Dating means dating in my usage, although it also involved sleeping with. Dating multiple men is a stepping stone to marrying multiple men so I thought it was relevant.
I think the monogamous marriage is a system that is evolved to keep incels busy. In a man's perspective it makes no sense to get into a contract that he will have sex with only one woman rest of his life and have babies only with her. The only reason a man might accept this is because he thinks his chances of having sex and breeding outside of these are negligible and diminishing with his age.
In short the person would be an incel.
If you are man with sufficient wealth and power, you can have sex outside of marriage pretty easily and also with more women and younger ones. Your ability to attract younger and better woman goes up with your age rather than down. But such men would mostly be alpha males of the society. Marriage is stupid for such people as we can see in examples of Jeff Bezos, Johny Depp etc. Where as someone like Leonardo DiCaprio shows us why marriage is a bad idea for people with power and status. Elon Musk has showed us that the alpha male can have lots of children without the baggage of monogamous marriage.
I think marriage as a solution for sexual gratification would be less and less appealing with time for men at least.
But when it comes to childcare, the appeal of marriage is still valid. It is expensive to surrogate a baby and then hire a full time nanny to take care of the baby not to mention the baby can not get mother's love in this case. A marriage might be cheaper option for most men except for the likes of Musk.
I propose a different scheme:
A company offers women who are between 18 and 30 membership. The deal is very simple. The company tracks these women and their behaviour and and some point gives them an option to pick a profile form their database and get sperms of that profile. The women get pregnant and deliver a baby. The company takes full care of the mother, and later offers her money per month to take care of the child until the child is an adult and may be even after that.
On the other side the company offers men an option to ensure they have children without worrying too much about childcare. All they do is pay a fixed money initially and later when the birth of the child is confirmed they pay more every month.
The company also acts as an insurance company that will help both parents if the child is born with defects and raising it becomes harder.
Eventually this company can extend its services to many others such as couples who might be willing to raise someone else's child. If some people have 3-4 kids, the marginal cost of raising another child might be low but the monthly income might be worth it.
Note that in all these cases the mother will always be the biological mother of the child she is raising and hence improves the chances of the child getting good care. There wont be any restriction of these women getting married to anyone. In fact, if they want they might as well get married to the biological father of the child if both parties agree.
The same company can create subdivisions and different service plans based on the customer demands. For example a white father who wants to make sure his sperms are given only to a white woman might have to pay more. A hindu father who insists that the mother be hindu too might have to pay more. Some men might want exclusive relationship where they want the woman not impregnate herself with any other men's sperms if she births his baby, this might be a premium plan.
I think having children is incredibly hard for women, a good system will compensate women for the hardship with a market price and we will have more kids as a result.
You appear to assume that the only reason men want children is the desire for reproductive success. I believe that is mistaken, as suggested by the fact that few men produce as many children as they can support.
As best I can tell, evolution has not yet programmed men to have a strong desire for reproductive success. It uses proxies instead — the desire for sex and paternal affection for children. Your scheme provides men with neither sex nor children of their own for them to interact with, so is inferior to marriage from the man's standpoint.
Marriage provides both — since husband and wife are living together can get both sexual pleasure and the pleasure of interacting with their children.
Paternal care turns out to be vital. Most children turn out better if the biological father is present and involved. You can point to plenty of examples where that is _not_ true, but they are the exception.
I thought it would be clear that I was distinguishing between a situation where the evolutionary advantage of reliable paternity resulted in male sexual jealousy being hard wired and one where the evolutionary advantage of reliable paternity resulted in a desire for reliable paternity being hard wired and male sexual jealousy was then a not-hard-wired expression of that desire, a strategy rather than an innate taste.
My guess is that, as with other psychological characteristics, there is a range.
You also have the issue with female jealousy, i.e., conflict between women over their shared husband's resources. If you read dynastic histories of polygynous societies, this is a very common theme.
"female as a mechanism to reduce the risk that paternal resources will be diverted to another woman’s children"
The context I was thinking of was wives of polygynous rulers, in particular caliphs, intriguing to get the succession for their sons. But the conflict could be over resources for their own consumption.
I was thinking more like Mormons, e.g. And I have had some friendships with Southeastern Asian Muslim men during my 10 years in grad school. They basically told me their first marriage was "politics" in one form or another, though they uniformly liked their wives, while the last three were for other reasons, and quite frequently they married 2 or 3 sisters. But that is anecdotal.
And one white American grad school 'friend' was divorced by his American wife and later married a Muslim woman who brought her sister to live with them. He converted and 'married' the sister in a religious ceremony, but not a recorded legal one.
Fun, but hardly tricky: A spouse inherits 50%, the rest is shared among the kids of the deceased. If there is more than one spouse/widow: the 50% is shared among them. Kids: as before. Individual last wills can decide otherwise, as they can now. Though each spouse and kid is entitled to get at least half of what ´would have been their standar-share. (German law)
Does an employer who provides family insurance benefits to their employees have to cover all of the wives, how is that fair and how are the lawsuits to be avoided?
In my country, the cover is fixed at 14.6% (paid by employer and employee) for all workers, single, married or DINKs, no kids or many. (I mainly hold a job just to have my family insured.) I assume, the system could adapt to include kids "only", not poly-spouses - though some of them will probably be working (and paying to be insured) anyways. Lawsuits: ? oh, divorce, well: today in many cases one spouse soon/already has new partner and kids. In other words: if one has to give a lot of dough to kids and housewife-mums, there is not much left to pay for alimony of a divorced ex-spouse. "equalization of gains" or "pensions" that is tricky either way. I would prefer this stuff could just disappear. Spouses could do prenuptials. They can and do now. How are divorce lawyers in the US doing right now? Everyone happy for them? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Cruelty
One story I have heard a couple times, was that historical polygyny could in part have existed due to men marrying younger women, and younger generations being bigger, similarly in modern subcultures that are fertile, insular and in which men marry younger women, there seem to be issues relating to excess single women.
Also, its supposedly the case that some of the genetic evidence in favour of extreme polygyny could instead be explained by something along the lines men forming tribes and basically kidnapping women from other tribes (https://nuancepill.com/did-1-man-reproduce-for-every-17-women/).
Men, at least in our society, marry women a few years younger than they are, and even with a growing society the difference in size between generation X and generation X+3 years is tiny.
The version of this that might work is for a very sharp population surge, the baby boom after WWII. From 1945 to 1948 the birth rate jumped 27%. In 1968, for every five 20 year old women looking for a husband there were only four 23 year old men for them to marry. Some, unable to find a husband, settled for a lover instead — and, in the words of the friend offering his theory for the sexual revolution, the immemorial sexual cartel broke down.
It's true that in the US for the past 100 years or so the age gap has been 2-3yrs (https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1663254436817272859), but that as Stefan Schubert points out in the replies, estimates of generation times for the past 250,000 years (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm7047), puts the difference at around 7-9yrs depending on the time period and region, also importantly such gen time estimates are of the mean age of the middle parturition, not the age at first reproduction etc. but the gap is still informative.
No, as in the difference between when men and women have their middle child is 7-9yrs, as in a women would be having her middle child at say 22, the man would be having his middle child at 30.
So you're saying that an average generation time is around 30 years for men, but 22 years for women? How would we know that, especially from archaeological or palaeontological data?
The Richard Wang paper uses de novo mutations, you can download the data from the supplementary material yourself, and plot by region and time etc. it goes back 250k years. Seem some criticisms of it (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.20.549788v1.abstract), don't know enough about the details to properly evaluate them, but Richard's response seemed pretty good.
There are other methods I have seen, but this seems like the best paper on the topic by far. The other main method is to look at hunter gathers etc. and use differences in age of first birth/marriage ( https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.20188), to estimate difference in gen times, the result they got for first marriage diff was 7plusminus4.8, and a female and male gen time of 25 and 32. Whilst the estimate for the gap is consistent with Wang's estimate, their estimates for age of first reproduction are not consistent, having contacted Wang a while back he didn't know of any method to estimate AFR from his data, but having read the literature on AFR myself it seems the discrepancy is due to data looking at various hunter gather populations having very late age of menarche (From memory the populations discussed in Montagu 1957, had menarche at like 15+ or 17+ etc. explaining why his AFR estimate was soo high) If you read the literature on age of menarche the standard estimate is that both palaeolithic and neolithic females underwent menarche at age 7-13 (contrary to claims that moderns have early menarche) (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16311040/) with the recent historical peak being unusual. Then if you read the literature looking at age of menarche and AFR (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338576763_Emerging_Adulthood_a_Pre-adult_Life-History_Stage) there is a very consistent 3-4 year gap between menarche and first birth, independent of age of menarche (minus 9+ months for pregnancy and marriage) this would put palaeolithic and neolithic AFR at 10-17, which would in fact be consistent with Wang's gen time estimates. In summary no matter what evidence you look at it seems that moderns had a recent age gap of 3yrs, and historical populations a gap of 7yrs or so and a AFR much younger than you would expect from naively looking at various contemporary hunter gather groups.
Your first possibility would work _really well_ in societies where many young men get killed in war. Most barbarian cultures restrict marriage to proven warriors. It makes them uncomfortable neighbors.
There’s also the possibility of women sharing the same man without any formal arrangement. These women would depend on social services to provide support that would otherwise come from family. This would effectively cuckold the unmarried male taxpayers.
I’m saying that too many women of higher SES will intentionally have children by the sire of their choice, with government services to replace paternal support. Like the welfare class, but with fewer drive-by shootings, at least at first.
Marriage for any woman is a trade off between getting the best genes for her offspring, and getting financial support and paternal care for them.
The “best” men are oversubscribed. Few can afford to support multiple families. Nobody can give multiple families enough attention.
A woman who discounts the importance of paternal involvement may decide single motherhood is better than compromise, particularly if she can get government subsidies.
it's probably useful to look at the de facto standard of romantic relationships nowadays as a serial monogamy. I think there is a significant difference to lifelong monogamy. People deploring divorce rates give evidence to the fact that in the eyes of a substantial fraction of the population, serial monogamy really isn't acceptable.
Another important difference between lifelong monogamy and serial monogamy: Lifelong monogamy in a population with sex distributions close to 50% male and female, results in a situation where for every single man looking for a wife, there is - in principle a single woman looking for a man.
Serial monogamy allows for a somewhat weird situation, where a good chunk of the males are taken out of the equation (they die as virgins) while old female virgins are rare relatively speaking. This is more akin to the situation of polygamy (polygyny) than monogamy.
However, serial monogamy creates a situation where men of a certain age can divorce their wives and marry younger women, sometimes known as "trophy wives." This tends to create a population of older women who cannot readily find male sexual partners, even if they would like them, and who lack the services provided by men in the traditional division of labor (both practical and emotional). They may not be virgins but they may be frustrated and/or resentful, not entirely without cause.
Yes, and looking at the other side of the coin, a population with the same number of males and females will still have a huge excess of fertile males compared to fertile females, so serial monogamy (I'd rather call it serial polygyny) will lead to a greater number of men being lifelong incels compared to proper monogamy, and in that respect it is similar to polygyny.
As a "serial monogamier" (5 kids by 3 women) ;) I slightly disagree with the statement: "People deploring divorce rates give evidence to the fact that in the eyes of a substantial fraction of the population, serial monogamy really isn't acceptable." Sure, the pope is unhappy. But who else? Theocratic Saudia has sky-high divorce-rates (most in the first 3 years), "orthodox" Russia: rare the teenager whose parents are still married (with each other). Yeah, divorce has become normal. Sad, we say; shrug, we do. "Isn't acceptable"? Really? It felt kinda new and serious in 70ies. No more. - That said, even though I was - for short time periods - married to 2 at the same time (I lived in Saudi while divorcing from first wife), I assume "jealousy" is hard-wired (with individual variation). From a woman's side it makes too much sense, even today: the polygamous father WILL share his income/wealth with other women and their kids, leaving LESS for you and your kids (while I tell my one wife with a straight face: "my money is your money").
My understanding was that in the US (from say 1650 as colonies to at least 1850) the average marriage lasted a bit more than 10 years because one spouse or the other died. The surviving spouse then remarried because single individuals had harder times than married spouses. This led to all sorts of mised families, because even if the average of deathe was 45 or so, many people still made it into their late 60s.
So, say, a young woman (15) could marry a young (19) man who was establishing himself. In 10 years and 3 surviving children the husband dies, but leaves at least a small estate, amking the widow attractive to another young (20) man who was getting estanlished, AND she was still yung enough to have 3 more children. The she dies in 190 years, and the now 30-year-old-man, well-established marries a 17 year-old wome and has 3 more children. And on and on.
perceptions differ. I am not morally invested in life-long monogamy, personally, and I was surprised how many people are. But I don't have the statistics.
I am not morally invested in life-long monogamy but I think it is probably the best arrangement for many, perhaps most, people, provided you find the right spouse.
Sad, would be nice to know how many want to ban no-fault divorces, really. "No-fault divorce was first legalized in California in 1969 by then-Governor Ronald Reagan, who would eventually become the first US president who had been divorced (Former President Donald Trump was the second.) By 2010, every state had legalized a no-fault divorce option. ... some people want to get rid of no-fault divorce ... Statistics show no-fault divorce does indeed correlate with an initial spike in divorce rates, but the numbers even out or even drop below previous rates over time. Census data from 2020 revealed the US divorce rate hit a 50-year low in 2019." From CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/27/us/no-fault-divorce-explained-history-wellness-cec/index.html In Germany it is about 140.000 divorces (nearly all "no-fault") - and 360.000 marriages. Average marriage length 15 years, long enough to raise the kids, I'd say.
Would you object to giving couples a choice between modern marriage, with no fault divorce, and traditional marriage, with divorce only for cause? That gets to Brutus' point that current law doesn't allow people to make a binding commitment and there may be good reasons why they would want to.
That question makes me think me a bit of the paradox: "Can God create a rock so heavy God can not lift it?" - Can - and should - the law give you the choice to choose today to give up your choice - for ever? In all matters? Not sure for all situations, but in the case of marriage and divorce the voters have mostly been much happier with "no-fault". In Germany, a return to the old system is out-of-question, really. I see Brutus' point, but in practice marriage is still - as it ever was - a binding commitment to help raising your kids, even after divorce. (The expensive part of my divorce was paying for my ex's life when she "could not work" while taking care of our kid.) I do not think there should be a "contract to monopolise each others genitals for very long periods of time" - nor do I consider such contracts of high moral value. My self in year X should often, but not always be allowed to make absolutely(!) binding contracts over who-is-me in a decade or five. Even a monk can break his vows-for-life and leave the monastery. - In prenuptials (or a postnuptial) you can guarantee to pay, say a million bucks to the other, if you divorce them (typical part of a Muslim prenuptial) - or if you are found adulterous, I guess. - My impression is: Even today, US-divorces may turn brutal; one has to be really brave to marry. This is romantic, but hardly an incentive to marry in the age of fine jobs for all genders - and dating-apps.
The interesting question, following on the comment by Brutus and the argument in his link (to a very long essay), is whether easy divorce and associated changes that make the terms of traditional marriage unenforceable, result in fewer people getting married and lower birth rates.
The developments seem to hint: with the old rules, less people would marry today, as the punishment of a old-style-divorce seem disastrous. All genders can find good jobs today (and there are dating apps) - making marriage just another option - and kids out of wedlock the new standard in many countries.
At the comment below: Reminds me of the ol’ paradox: ‘Can God create a rock so heavy God can not lift it?’ - Can and should the law give people – in all contexts - the choice to give up their choice forever? Don’t know much philosophy, but in the case of supposedly romantic relationship, that sounds bad and seems over-the-top. Marriage is still – as it ever was – quite a binding obligation to take care of your kids. (The really expensive part of my first divorce was paying for my ex’s-life while she “could not work” as she cared for our daughter. Yep, we had a prenuptial). In Muslim marriages, the usual contract promises the wife big money if she gets divorced with kids. But the inexperienced me and you in year X sign “a life-long deal monopolizing each others genitals” with no reasonable exit-clause? I see Brutus’ point, but I do not feel such contracts should exist. Even a monk can leave his order, shrugging of his “vows-for-life”. So, did St. Benedict “ban monastic life”, really? - Anyways, voters decided: making divorce any harder is a great way to lose elections. Even today, US-divorce law seem brutal to me; amazing there are still people brave enough to try. But hardly an incentive to tie the knot. - A promise to pay a substantial amount (10% of wealth or 3 months income) if found adulterous - might be ok, write it in the prenuptial; for the vibes.
Honored by the author comments, I seem not to be able to comment directly. Here my takes: Reminds me of the ol’ paradox: ‘Can God create a rock so heavy God can not lift it?’ - Can and should the law give people – in all contexts - the choice to give up their choice forever? Don’t know much philosophy, but in the case of supposedly romantic relationship, that sounds bad and seems over-the-top. Marriage is still – as it ever was – quite a binding obligation to take care of your kids. (The really expensive part of my first divorce was paying for my ex’s-life while she “could not work” as she cared for our daughter. Yep, we had a prenuptial). In Muslim marriages, the usual contract promises the wife big money if she gets divorced with kids. But the inexperienced me and you in year X sign “a life-long deal monopolizing each others genitals” with no reasonable exit-clause? I see Brutus’ point, but I do not feel such contracts should exist. Even a monk can leave his order, shrugging of his “vows-for-life”. So, did St. Benedict “ban monastic life”, really? - Anyways, voters decided: making divorce any harder is a great way to lose elections. Even today, US-divorce law seem brutal to me; amazing there are still people brave enough to try. But hardly an incentive to tie the knot. - A promise to pay a substantial amount (10% of wealth or 3 months income) if found adulterous - might be ok, write it in the prenuptial; for the vibes.
and maybe noteworthy how "slut shaming" together with the positive connotation of the male "stud" is effectively is a way of incentivizing this configuration.
This an interesting line of thinking, but your last point about jealousy does add a pretty big hitch. The feeling of jealousy is an inheritied trait that would take numerous generations to evolve out of us if the polygamous situations ended up being beneficial, even in a harsher environment. But in our society where almost everyone can survive to procreate, we might just have to find the jealousy gene and turn it off to make that work.
But even so, there's another thing you didn't mentioned: societal problems with polygamy. Its unlikely that mates will simply stabilize at an appropriate level. 8000 years ago, there was a very marked decrease in male genetic diversity, indicating an era of about 3000 years where polygyny was the norm. The reason for the sudden increase in male genetic diversity after that 3000 years is speculative, but some think that was when marriage was invented, and it ended up being a very positive development for societies. In a society where most men could not get a wife, it seems plausible that this lead to massive social unrest or other kinds of dysfunction. Marriage may have solved this problem and lead to much more stable productive societies where most men had a chance at success in life (and less reason to start revolutions). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4381518/
This an interesting line of thinking, but your last point about jealousy does add a pretty big hitch. The feeling of jealousy is an inheritied trait that would take numerous generations to evolve out of us if the polygamous situations ended up being beneficial, even in a harsher environment. But in our society where almost everyone can survive to procreate, we might just have to find the jealousy gene and turn it off to make that work.
But even so, there's another thing you didn't mentioned: societal problems with polygamy. Its unlikely that mates will simply stabilize at an appropriate level. 8000 years ago, there was a very marked decrease in male genetic diversity, indicating an era of about 3000 years where polygyny was the norm. The reason for the sudden increase in male genetic diversity after that 3000 years is speculative, but some think that was when marriage was invented, and it ended up being a very positive development for societies. In a society where most men could not get a wife, it seems plausible that this lead to massive social unrest or other kinds of dysfunction. Marriage may have solved this problem and lead to much more stable productive societies where most men had a chance at success in life (and less reason to start revolutions). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4381518/
I see two major reasons for the change in reproductive patterns over the last century and a half. The first is Social Security (first offered in the 1870s in Bismarck's Germany). Before SS anyone who wanted to go on living after he was too old to work, had to have some living descendants who could be asked to support him. This meant that extended families had to stay together, and the nuclear family could not exist.
The second reason was LBJ's "war on poverty" and its creation AFDC, which subsidizes teenage girls to their own apartments even while underage if they move out of their mothers' home, and penalizes them if they marry or live with a boyfriend. Thomas Sowell writes all about how this destroyed the motivation for families, especially black, to stay together.
As for polygamy: I'm surprised no one is addressing the strongest argument for banning it (in the US at least). That is the fact that only two groups big enough to notice have practiced it in the US -- the "jack Mormons" and Muslim immigrants from countries that have legal polygyny. And both those groups have histories of abusing their women more than the general population.
How do you know that polygamist Mormons (or Muslim immigrants) abuse their women more than others? I ask mostly because I followed the FLDS case in Texas fairly closely and concluded that the public picture of what happened was wildly biased against the FLDS, that it was in fact a case of mass child abuse, arguably attempted genocide (destroying a religion by taking the children away), by the Texas authorities. That makes me suspicious of public opinion on the issue. If curious, My post at the time are mostly at:
A small note that might be interesting to some, since you mentioned Israeli Bedouins. Their way of having many wives (many times four or more) even though it's illegal, is to marry and divorce each one. All remain under one household. The reason for marrying in the first place is social benefits, that increase super-linearly with the number of children. This makes the matriarch rich and respected.
It long ago occurred to me that in our society a way of maintaining a household with one wife and two husbands would be to marry one, have a child by him, divorce him and marry another. The child, with shared custody, would provide an explanation for why the first husband was in the house so much. Similarly, mutatis mutandis, for two wives and one husband.
In some of the poorest parts of India, brothers share a wife[1]. One brother stays home with the woman, working in agriculture for a year or so, while the other moves to a larger city thousands of miles away to work as a manual laborer where pay is better. Then the brothers switch places.
After reading your post, I realized this arrangement also ensures that if the woman becomes pregnant, they know fairly reliably who the father is. The physical distance also ensures that there is no sexual jealousy.
I learned this from someone who had moved to the city from such an arrangement. He said this practice essentially ensures that the woman (who is often married at the young age of 14 or older) does not have affairs. It is seen as preferable to be intimate with a husband's sibling than with someone outside the family. Additionally, others in the village know the woman is "protected," so they are less likely to pursue her. Secondly, children are taken care off even if the father knows they are not his, because after all they are still his own blood (through brother). Grandparents too have no reason to discriminate against grandkids.
[1] This is not a common practice because my source for this is anecdotal information but confirmed by occasional news article throwing light on these sort of things.
My unerstanding from coursework in "South Asia" many decades ago, was that it was relatively common practice in Nepal and Bhutan (not sure about Tibet) for tow or more brothers to marry two or more not-very-closely-related-to-the-brothers sisters in a group marriage. Yhis was at least partly due to having only limited areas of agrable land plus not wanting to overly split the land among inheriting brothers.
And of course the infant survival rate was pretty low.
I can't quickly find a source for this, it was just very memorable at the time, so this article resurfaced the memory. The practice seems to make sense in such circumstances.
One woman married to several brothers: Long tradition among several communities in India- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyandry_in_India#
1) Do you think that the decline in monogamy and rise of polygamy is to do with changes in technology, or to government interference in marriage law? Since the 1970s, divorce courts have ruled consistently against men even when a woman violates her marital vows, such as by committing adultery. Adultery is essentially a form of fraud and theft -- a reneging on a contract where the one owes chastity to the other. Typically, there was some punishment, even perhaps physical punishment, for women who committed adultery. The result is that government has essentially made marriage, in the traditional sense, illegal. It is illegal for a woman to take a vow of chastity in the USA which is legally enforceable. I am not advocating or denying this system of traditional marriage. Here is a substack article I wrote about it: https://romanviolin.substack.com/p/marriage-is-illegal?https://substack.com/home/post/p-143174733?r=1dzuvw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
2) The other major factor you are missing is the fact that reproduction, biologically, is much more difficult for women than for men. A man who wants to have hundreds of children, theoretically, can. A woman simply cannot have very many children, and by the time the number gets up to three, four, five, and more the household work does become a full time job. The check to female reproduction is biological. The check to male reproduction is social. The hard part is finding a wife, but after consummation the woman does most of the work (biologically)! In a sense, men have many more children to "give" than women do. If every man was allowed to repopulate at his preferred rate, he would produce an entire village full of children.
Thus, the result of normalizing and legalizing polygamy is not likely to be a greater increase in overall sexual satisfaction. The result is likely to be that a small number of men marry all the women, and that most men are pushed out of the sexual marketplace entirely. This has already happened to a considerable degree.
3) In a polygamous society there is no "we" -- the male and female unit -- which produces children and "owns" the family. Under monogamy, both the man and the woman did all the work -- biological, economical, social and otherwise. Under polygamy, is the "we" all the parental members of the family? Let us say there is a polygamous relationship with two men and three women. Will each man be the 1/2 property owner of all the children produced by his wives (regardless of paternity), or will he fully own only his children and have no fatherhood role toward the rest? Will his income than be docked according to which children are his? Then multiple children who are siblings will have different socioeconomic statuses despite living in the same house depending on who their father is. Additionally, is it to be expected that men and women care for all children produced by the family and not prefer their own children? I think that the preference for one's own children is pretty inborn into us as well, especially into women.
At a certain point, polygamously, doesn't the "we" just become all of society? Why can't a million people just sign a contract saying we all are married polygamously now, and these children are all our children, owned jointly? Then, we will designate some institution to take some of everyone's income and this institution will be responsible for raising all the children. Indeed, we are halfway there already -- to full sexual socialism.
I hope these comments provide food for thought. Always an interesting read, Mr. Friedman.
that last sentence is classic David Friedman: "if there are rational reasons not to feel jealousy anymore, it is no longer necessary", ah but humans are not the kind of thing that can just update like that, robotically (nor do I think there's anything wrong with that: a definite human-ness, even when feeble, is better in my view than a world that tries so hard to be optimal it's now questionable how human it is)
You do not seem to have noticed the first word of that sentence or the last sentence of the preceding paragraph.
Well, there's the additional factor that I have/had six sisters-in-law, and I wouldn't want to be married to any of them. At least 4 of them fit their husbands very well, just not me. ;-)
I don't think you meant "polygeny."
You are correct. Fixed.
Perhaps he said it out loud, at least some dictionaries show pronunciation of both polygeny and polygyny as /pə-lĭj′ə-nē/. ;-)
I once dated a woman off tinder who was dating multiple other men off tinder for a couple months. It generally seemed like a good deal for the woman, there are lots of nice men on tinder who'd be happy to get any date at all, even with a polyandrous woman. And the woman has a benefit of being able to have lots of flexibility on date nights at times most convenient to her and pleasant variety in partners.
I understand that most women seem to be very reluctant to engage in polyandry, at least partially due to culture, maybe for genetic reasons too. But I think quite a few would be much better off to overcome that reluctance and take advantage of the abundance of men on dating apps today.
You are discussing dating, not marriage. The pattern you are describing is promiscuity, or something close, depending on how picky the woman is, not polyandry.
In your usage, does "date" mean "sleep with"? Some people now seem to use it that way. In my lexicon dating is usually, although not always, part of courtship, ideally leading to marriage, may or may not include intercourse
Dating means dating in my usage, although it also involved sleeping with. Dating multiple men is a stepping stone to marrying multiple men so I thought it was relevant.
I think the monogamous marriage is a system that is evolved to keep incels busy. In a man's perspective it makes no sense to get into a contract that he will have sex with only one woman rest of his life and have babies only with her. The only reason a man might accept this is because he thinks his chances of having sex and breeding outside of these are negligible and diminishing with his age.
In short the person would be an incel.
If you are man with sufficient wealth and power, you can have sex outside of marriage pretty easily and also with more women and younger ones. Your ability to attract younger and better woman goes up with your age rather than down. But such men would mostly be alpha males of the society. Marriage is stupid for such people as we can see in examples of Jeff Bezos, Johny Depp etc. Where as someone like Leonardo DiCaprio shows us why marriage is a bad idea for people with power and status. Elon Musk has showed us that the alpha male can have lots of children without the baggage of monogamous marriage.
I think marriage as a solution for sexual gratification would be less and less appealing with time for men at least.
But when it comes to childcare, the appeal of marriage is still valid. It is expensive to surrogate a baby and then hire a full time nanny to take care of the baby not to mention the baby can not get mother's love in this case. A marriage might be cheaper option for most men except for the likes of Musk.
I propose a different scheme:
A company offers women who are between 18 and 30 membership. The deal is very simple. The company tracks these women and their behaviour and and some point gives them an option to pick a profile form their database and get sperms of that profile. The women get pregnant and deliver a baby. The company takes full care of the mother, and later offers her money per month to take care of the child until the child is an adult and may be even after that.
On the other side the company offers men an option to ensure they have children without worrying too much about childcare. All they do is pay a fixed money initially and later when the birth of the child is confirmed they pay more every month.
The company also acts as an insurance company that will help both parents if the child is born with defects and raising it becomes harder.
Eventually this company can extend its services to many others such as couples who might be willing to raise someone else's child. If some people have 3-4 kids, the marginal cost of raising another child might be low but the monthly income might be worth it.
Note that in all these cases the mother will always be the biological mother of the child she is raising and hence improves the chances of the child getting good care. There wont be any restriction of these women getting married to anyone. In fact, if they want they might as well get married to the biological father of the child if both parties agree.
The same company can create subdivisions and different service plans based on the customer demands. For example a white father who wants to make sure his sperms are given only to a white woman might have to pay more. A hindu father who insists that the mother be hindu too might have to pay more. Some men might want exclusive relationship where they want the woman not impregnate herself with any other men's sperms if she births his baby, this might be a premium plan.
I think having children is incredibly hard for women, a good system will compensate women for the hardship with a market price and we will have more kids as a result.
You appear to assume that the only reason men want children is the desire for reproductive success. I believe that is mistaken, as suggested by the fact that few men produce as many children as they can support.
As best I can tell, evolution has not yet programmed men to have a strong desire for reproductive success. It uses proxies instead — the desire for sex and paternal affection for children. Your scheme provides men with neither sex nor children of their own for them to interact with, so is inferior to marriage from the man's standpoint.
Marriage provides both — since husband and wife are living together can get both sexual pleasure and the pleasure of interacting with their children.
Paternal care turns out to be vital. Most children turn out better if the biological father is present and involved. You can point to plenty of examples where that is _not_ true, but they are the exception.
Some interesting concepts, for sure.
> If, on the other hand, male sexual jealousy exists at present as a mechanism for reliable paternity,
Jealousy exists as a mechanism for reliable paternity in the same sense that the pleasure of sex exists as a mechanism to encourage reproduction.
I thought it would be clear that I was distinguishing between a situation where the evolutionary advantage of reliable paternity resulted in male sexual jealousy being hard wired and one where the evolutionary advantage of reliable paternity resulted in a desire for reliable paternity being hard wired and male sexual jealousy was then a not-hard-wired expression of that desire, a strategy rather than an innate taste.
My guess is that, as with other psychological characteristics, there is a range.
You also have the issue with female jealousy, i.e., conflict between women over their shared husband's resources. If you read dynastic histories of polygynous societies, this is a very common theme.
Yes. That is why I wrote:
"female as a mechanism to reduce the risk that paternal resources will be diverted to another woman’s children"
The context I was thinking of was wives of polygynous rulers, in particular caliphs, intriguing to get the succession for their sons. But the conflict could be over resources for their own consumption.
I believe that many polygynous marriages are of a man and several actul blood sisters. That might possibly keep the jealousy in check a bit.
I've never seen any indication of that. Certainly, this is not the case in royal harems.
I was thinking more like Mormons, e.g. And I have had some friendships with Southeastern Asian Muslim men during my 10 years in grad school. They basically told me their first marriage was "politics" in one form or another, though they uniformly liked their wives, while the last three were for other reasons, and quite frequently they married 2 or 3 sisters. But that is anecdotal.
And one white American grad school 'friend' was divorced by his American wife and later married a Muslim woman who brought her sister to live with them. He converted and 'married' the sister in a religious ceremony, but not a recorded legal one.
So even in your examples wives 1 and 2 were unrelated. It was only wives 3+ who are related to wife 2.
Yes. I'm not sure I ever said all of the wives were sisters. But if thats the hill you'll die, please don't let me stop you.
I merely think that many times polygynists marry sisters. Very few male plygamists appear to marry brothers, so far as I know.
Insurance benefits. Property rights. Inheritance. Discuss…
Fun, but hardly tricky: A spouse inherits 50%, the rest is shared among the kids of the deceased. If there is more than one spouse/widow: the 50% is shared among them. Kids: as before. Individual last wills can decide otherwise, as they can now. Though each spouse and kid is entitled to get at least half of what ´would have been their standar-share. (German law)
Insurance et al. : As written in the contract(s).
Islamic law has rules for inheritance that cover the case of multiple wives but I don't know the details.
Does an employer who provides family insurance benefits to their employees have to cover all of the wives, how is that fair and how are the lawsuits to be avoided?
In my country, the cover is fixed at 14.6% (paid by employer and employee) for all workers, single, married or DINKs, no kids or many. (I mainly hold a job just to have my family insured.) I assume, the system could adapt to include kids "only", not poly-spouses - though some of them will probably be working (and paying to be insured) anyways. Lawsuits: ? oh, divorce, well: today in many cases one spouse soon/already has new partner and kids. In other words: if one has to give a lot of dough to kids and housewife-mums, there is not much left to pay for alimony of a divorced ex-spouse. "equalization of gains" or "pensions" that is tricky either way. I would prefer this stuff could just disappear. Spouses could do prenuptials. They can and do now. How are divorce lawyers in the US doing right now? Everyone happy for them? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Cruelty
I’m thinking there will be civil rights lawsuits where wife2 sues companies for the same benefit wife1 recievs from the husband’s employer…
One story I have heard a couple times, was that historical polygyny could in part have existed due to men marrying younger women, and younger generations being bigger, similarly in modern subcultures that are fertile, insular and in which men marry younger women, there seem to be issues relating to excess single women.
Also, its supposedly the case that some of the genetic evidence in favour of extreme polygyny could instead be explained by something along the lines men forming tribes and basically kidnapping women from other tribes (https://nuancepill.com/did-1-man-reproduce-for-every-17-women/).
Men, at least in our society, marry women a few years younger than they are, and even with a growing society the difference in size between generation X and generation X+3 years is tiny.
The version of this that might work is for a very sharp population surge, the baby boom after WWII. From 1945 to 1948 the birth rate jumped 27%. In 1968, for every five 20 year old women looking for a husband there were only four 23 year old men for them to marry. Some, unable to find a husband, settled for a lover instead — and, in the words of the friend offering his theory for the sexual revolution, the immemorial sexual cartel broke down.
It's true that in the US for the past 100 years or so the age gap has been 2-3yrs (https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1663254436817272859), but that as Stefan Schubert points out in the replies, estimates of generation times for the past 250,000 years (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm7047), puts the difference at around 7-9yrs depending on the time period and region, also importantly such gen time estimates are of the mean age of the middle parturition, not the age at first reproduction etc. but the gap is still informative.
It seems that arithmetically, "wife is 2-3 years younger" and "middle parturition is 7-9 years later" could both be true without much strain, if any.
No, as in the difference between when men and women have their middle child is 7-9yrs, as in a women would be having her middle child at say 22, the man would be having his middle child at 30.
So you're saying that an average generation time is around 30 years for men, but 22 years for women? How would we know that, especially from archaeological or palaeontological data?
The Richard Wang paper uses de novo mutations, you can download the data from the supplementary material yourself, and plot by region and time etc. it goes back 250k years. Seem some criticisms of it (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.20.549788v1.abstract), don't know enough about the details to properly evaluate them, but Richard's response seemed pretty good.
There are other methods I have seen, but this seems like the best paper on the topic by far. The other main method is to look at hunter gathers etc. and use differences in age of first birth/marriage ( https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.20188), to estimate difference in gen times, the result they got for first marriage diff was 7plusminus4.8, and a female and male gen time of 25 and 32. Whilst the estimate for the gap is consistent with Wang's estimate, their estimates for age of first reproduction are not consistent, having contacted Wang a while back he didn't know of any method to estimate AFR from his data, but having read the literature on AFR myself it seems the discrepancy is due to data looking at various hunter gather populations having very late age of menarche (From memory the populations discussed in Montagu 1957, had menarche at like 15+ or 17+ etc. explaining why his AFR estimate was soo high) If you read the literature on age of menarche the standard estimate is that both palaeolithic and neolithic females underwent menarche at age 7-13 (contrary to claims that moderns have early menarche) (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16311040/) with the recent historical peak being unusual. Then if you read the literature looking at age of menarche and AFR (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338576763_Emerging_Adulthood_a_Pre-adult_Life-History_Stage) there is a very consistent 3-4 year gap between menarche and first birth, independent of age of menarche (minus 9+ months for pregnancy and marriage) this would put palaeolithic and neolithic AFR at 10-17, which would in fact be consistent with Wang's gen time estimates. In summary no matter what evidence you look at it seems that moderns had a recent age gap of 3yrs, and historical populations a gap of 7yrs or so and a AFR much younger than you would expect from naively looking at various contemporary hunter gather groups.
Your first possibility would work _really well_ in societies where many young men get killed in war. Most barbarian cultures restrict marriage to proven warriors. It makes them uncomfortable neighbors.
There’s also the possibility of women sharing the same man without any formal arrangement. These women would depend on social services to provide support that would otherwise come from family. This would effectively cuckold the unmarried male taxpayers.
So, in the wealthier classes, a legal wife and at least one mistress. Seems like I've heard of that before.
I’m saying that too many women of higher SES will intentionally have children by the sire of their choice, with government services to replace paternal support. Like the welfare class, but with fewer drive-by shootings, at least at first.
I would have thought that, for a woman of higher SES, government services would be substantially less than she would expect in a marriage.
Marriage for any woman is a trade off between getting the best genes for her offspring, and getting financial support and paternal care for them.
The “best” men are oversubscribed. Few can afford to support multiple families. Nobody can give multiple families enough attention.
A woman who discounts the importance of paternal involvement may decide single motherhood is better than compromise, particularly if she can get government subsidies.
I read comments that the government should make childcare more affordable. Sounds like at least subsidies to me.
it's probably useful to look at the de facto standard of romantic relationships nowadays as a serial monogamy. I think there is a significant difference to lifelong monogamy. People deploring divorce rates give evidence to the fact that in the eyes of a substantial fraction of the population, serial monogamy really isn't acceptable.
Another important difference between lifelong monogamy and serial monogamy: Lifelong monogamy in a population with sex distributions close to 50% male and female, results in a situation where for every single man looking for a wife, there is - in principle a single woman looking for a man.
Serial monogamy allows for a somewhat weird situation, where a good chunk of the males are taken out of the equation (they die as virgins) while old female virgins are rare relatively speaking. This is more akin to the situation of polygamy (polygyny) than monogamy.
However, serial monogamy creates a situation where men of a certain age can divorce their wives and marry younger women, sometimes known as "trophy wives." This tends to create a population of older women who cannot readily find male sexual partners, even if they would like them, and who lack the services provided by men in the traditional division of labor (both practical and emotional). They may not be virgins but they may be frustrated and/or resentful, not entirely without cause.
Yes, and looking at the other side of the coin, a population with the same number of males and females will still have a huge excess of fertile males compared to fertile females, so serial monogamy (I'd rather call it serial polygyny) will lead to a greater number of men being lifelong incels compared to proper monogamy, and in that respect it is similar to polygyny.
As a "serial monogamier" (5 kids by 3 women) ;) I slightly disagree with the statement: "People deploring divorce rates give evidence to the fact that in the eyes of a substantial fraction of the population, serial monogamy really isn't acceptable." Sure, the pope is unhappy. But who else? Theocratic Saudia has sky-high divorce-rates (most in the first 3 years), "orthodox" Russia: rare the teenager whose parents are still married (with each other). Yeah, divorce has become normal. Sad, we say; shrug, we do. "Isn't acceptable"? Really? It felt kinda new and serious in 70ies. No more. - That said, even though I was - for short time periods - married to 2 at the same time (I lived in Saudi while divorcing from first wife), I assume "jealousy" is hard-wired (with individual variation). From a woman's side it makes too much sense, even today: the polygamous father WILL share his income/wealth with other women and their kids, leaving LESS for you and your kids (while I tell my one wife with a straight face: "my money is your money").
My understanding was that in the US (from say 1650 as colonies to at least 1850) the average marriage lasted a bit more than 10 years because one spouse or the other died. The surviving spouse then remarried because single individuals had harder times than married spouses. This led to all sorts of mised families, because even if the average of deathe was 45 or so, many people still made it into their late 60s.
So, say, a young woman (15) could marry a young (19) man who was establishing himself. In 10 years and 3 surviving children the husband dies, but leaves at least a small estate, amking the widow attractive to another young (20) man who was getting estanlished, AND she was still yung enough to have 3 more children. The she dies in 190 years, and the now 30-year-old-man, well-established marries a 17 year-old wome and has 3 more children. And on and on.
Works the other way as well.
perceptions differ. I am not morally invested in life-long monogamy, personally, and I was surprised how many people are. But I don't have the statistics.
I am not morally invested in life-long monogamy but I think it is probably the best arrangement for many, perhaps most, people, provided you find the right spouse.
Sad, would be nice to know how many want to ban no-fault divorces, really. "No-fault divorce was first legalized in California in 1969 by then-Governor Ronald Reagan, who would eventually become the first US president who had been divorced (Former President Donald Trump was the second.) By 2010, every state had legalized a no-fault divorce option. ... some people want to get rid of no-fault divorce ... Statistics show no-fault divorce does indeed correlate with an initial spike in divorce rates, but the numbers even out or even drop below previous rates over time. Census data from 2020 revealed the US divorce rate hit a 50-year low in 2019." From CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/27/us/no-fault-divorce-explained-history-wellness-cec/index.html In Germany it is about 140.000 divorces (nearly all "no-fault") - and 360.000 marriages. Average marriage length 15 years, long enough to raise the kids, I'd say.
Would you object to giving couples a choice between modern marriage, with no fault divorce, and traditional marriage, with divorce only for cause? That gets to Brutus' point that current law doesn't allow people to make a binding commitment and there may be good reasons why they would want to.
That question makes me think me a bit of the paradox: "Can God create a rock so heavy God can not lift it?" - Can - and should - the law give you the choice to choose today to give up your choice - for ever? In all matters? Not sure for all situations, but in the case of marriage and divorce the voters have mostly been much happier with "no-fault". In Germany, a return to the old system is out-of-question, really. I see Brutus' point, but in practice marriage is still - as it ever was - a binding commitment to help raising your kids, even after divorce. (The expensive part of my divorce was paying for my ex's life when she "could not work" while taking care of our kid.) I do not think there should be a "contract to monopolise each others genitals for very long periods of time" - nor do I consider such contracts of high moral value. My self in year X should often, but not always be allowed to make absolutely(!) binding contracts over who-is-me in a decade or five. Even a monk can break his vows-for-life and leave the monastery. - In prenuptials (or a postnuptial) you can guarantee to pay, say a million bucks to the other, if you divorce them (typical part of a Muslim prenuptial) - or if you are found adulterous, I guess. - My impression is: Even today, US-divorces may turn brutal; one has to be really brave to marry. This is romantic, but hardly an incentive to marry in the age of fine jobs for all genders - and dating-apps.
The interesting question, following on the comment by Brutus and the argument in his link (to a very long essay), is whether easy divorce and associated changes that make the terms of traditional marriage unenforceable, result in fewer people getting married and lower birth rates.
The developments seem to hint: with the old rules, less people would marry today, as the punishment of a old-style-divorce seem disastrous. All genders can find good jobs today (and there are dating apps) - making marriage just another option - and kids out of wedlock the new standard in many countries.
At the comment below: Reminds me of the ol’ paradox: ‘Can God create a rock so heavy God can not lift it?’ - Can and should the law give people – in all contexts - the choice to give up their choice forever? Don’t know much philosophy, but in the case of supposedly romantic relationship, that sounds bad and seems over-the-top. Marriage is still – as it ever was – quite a binding obligation to take care of your kids. (The really expensive part of my first divorce was paying for my ex’s-life while she “could not work” as she cared for our daughter. Yep, we had a prenuptial). In Muslim marriages, the usual contract promises the wife big money if she gets divorced with kids. But the inexperienced me and you in year X sign “a life-long deal monopolizing each others genitals” with no reasonable exit-clause? I see Brutus’ point, but I do not feel such contracts should exist. Even a monk can leave his order, shrugging of his “vows-for-life”. So, did St. Benedict “ban monastic life”, really? - Anyways, voters decided: making divorce any harder is a great way to lose elections. Even today, US-divorce law seem brutal to me; amazing there are still people brave enough to try. But hardly an incentive to tie the knot. - A promise to pay a substantial amount (10% of wealth or 3 months income) if found adulterous - might be ok, write it in the prenuptial; for the vibes.
Honored by the author comments, I seem not to be able to comment directly. Here my takes: Reminds me of the ol’ paradox: ‘Can God create a rock so heavy God can not lift it?’ - Can and should the law give people – in all contexts - the choice to give up their choice forever? Don’t know much philosophy, but in the case of supposedly romantic relationship, that sounds bad and seems over-the-top. Marriage is still – as it ever was – quite a binding obligation to take care of your kids. (The really expensive part of my first divorce was paying for my ex’s-life while she “could not work” as she cared for our daughter. Yep, we had a prenuptial). In Muslim marriages, the usual contract promises the wife big money if she gets divorced with kids. But the inexperienced me and you in year X sign “a life-long deal monopolizing each others genitals” with no reasonable exit-clause? I see Brutus’ point, but I do not feel such contracts should exist. Even a monk can leave his order, shrugging of his “vows-for-life”. So, did St. Benedict “ban monastic life”, really? - Anyways, voters decided: making divorce any harder is a great way to lose elections. Even today, US-divorce law seem brutal to me; amazing there are still people brave enough to try. But hardly an incentive to tie the knot. - A promise to pay a substantial amount (10% of wealth or 3 months income) if found adulterous - might be ok, write it in the prenuptial; for the vibes.
and maybe noteworthy how "slut shaming" together with the positive connotation of the male "stud" is effectively is a way of incentivizing this configuration.
You might like this series I wrote on the subject:
https://www.kvetch.au/p/wife-economics-and-the-domestication
This an interesting line of thinking, but your last point about jealousy does add a pretty big hitch. The feeling of jealousy is an inheritied trait that would take numerous generations to evolve out of us if the polygamous situations ended up being beneficial, even in a harsher environment. But in our society where almost everyone can survive to procreate, we might just have to find the jealousy gene and turn it off to make that work.
But even so, there's another thing you didn't mentioned: societal problems with polygamy. Its unlikely that mates will simply stabilize at an appropriate level. 8000 years ago, there was a very marked decrease in male genetic diversity, indicating an era of about 3000 years where polygyny was the norm. The reason for the sudden increase in male genetic diversity after that 3000 years is speculative, but some think that was when marriage was invented, and it ended up being a very positive development for societies. In a society where most men could not get a wife, it seems plausible that this lead to massive social unrest or other kinds of dysfunction. Marriage may have solved this problem and lead to much more stable productive societies where most men had a chance at success in life (and less reason to start revolutions). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4381518/
This an interesting line of thinking, but your last point about jealousy does add a pretty big hitch. The feeling of jealousy is an inheritied trait that would take numerous generations to evolve out of us if the polygamous situations ended up being beneficial, even in a harsher environment. But in our society where almost everyone can survive to procreate, we might just have to find the jealousy gene and turn it off to make that work.
But even so, there's another thing you didn't mentioned: societal problems with polygamy. Its unlikely that mates will simply stabilize at an appropriate level. 8000 years ago, there was a very marked decrease in male genetic diversity, indicating an era of about 3000 years where polygyny was the norm. The reason for the sudden increase in male genetic diversity after that 3000 years is speculative, but some think that was when marriage was invented, and it ended up being a very positive development for societies. In a society where most men could not get a wife, it seems plausible that this lead to massive social unrest or other kinds of dysfunction. Marriage may have solved this problem and lead to much more stable productive societies where most men had a chance at success in life (and less reason to start revolutions). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4381518/
I see two major reasons for the change in reproductive patterns over the last century and a half. The first is Social Security (first offered in the 1870s in Bismarck's Germany). Before SS anyone who wanted to go on living after he was too old to work, had to have some living descendants who could be asked to support him. This meant that extended families had to stay together, and the nuclear family could not exist.
The second reason was LBJ's "war on poverty" and its creation AFDC, which subsidizes teenage girls to their own apartments even while underage if they move out of their mothers' home, and penalizes them if they marry or live with a boyfriend. Thomas Sowell writes all about how this destroyed the motivation for families, especially black, to stay together.
As for polygamy: I'm surprised no one is addressing the strongest argument for banning it (in the US at least). That is the fact that only two groups big enough to notice have practiced it in the US -- the "jack Mormons" and Muslim immigrants from countries that have legal polygyny. And both those groups have histories of abusing their women more than the general population.
How do you know that polygamist Mormons (or Muslim immigrants) abuse their women more than others? I ask mostly because I followed the FLDS case in Texas fairly closely and concluded that the public picture of what happened was wildly biased against the FLDS, that it was in fact a case of mass child abuse, arguably attempted genocide (destroying a religion by taking the children away), by the Texas authorities. That makes me suspicious of public opinion on the issue. If curious, My post at the time are mostly at:
https://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/search?q=FLDS
Note that both the Texas appeals court and the Texas Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the seizure of 300 children was illegal.
I know nothing much about the evidence in Muslim immigrants.
Touche: I'm assuming Big Media told us the truth, and they very likely didn't. Mea culpa.
A small note that might be interesting to some, since you mentioned Israeli Bedouins. Their way of having many wives (many times four or more) even though it's illegal, is to marry and divorce each one. All remain under one household. The reason for marrying in the first place is social benefits, that increase super-linearly with the number of children. This makes the matriarch rich and respected.
It long ago occurred to me that in our society a way of maintaining a household with one wife and two husbands would be to marry one, have a child by him, divorce him and marry another. The child, with shared custody, would provide an explanation for why the first husband was in the house so much. Similarly, mutatis mutandis, for two wives and one husband.